


Aspen times

by PrincessLiamer



Category: South Park
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 14:44:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12191943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessLiamer/pseuds/PrincessLiamer





	Aspen times

It was the middle of winter. The time of year didn’t normally matter around the Colorado rockies, snow was a possibility eight months of the year, it was really only about October, and yet there was a fresh layer of snow, ready for Halloween this year. Jenny Simons looked out upon the familiar sight from the back seat of her parent’s convertible, head pressed against the glass. She’d lived in this small town her whole life, and was more accustomed to the weather than she was to the Summers without it. She was born in a blizzard, her mom used to tell her. A blessing they couldn’t have expected.  
Her mom would say, “I huddled with you for warmth in the car, waiting for the storm to let up, your father and brother by my side, and we waited out the storm. And you didn’t cry once. I felt your warmth radiated off you for hours, and I was happy to be holding my child.”  
Jenny was sitting alone in the unmoving car, waiting for her parents to stop arguing inside. They fought a lot, for a lot of different reasons. She just wanted to go to the mall to be with her friends already. She wondered if her friend’s had parents who fought like this. She could take guesses at who’s did and didn’t. Jenny thought she was pretty good at reading people. It was her thought that if one of the other girl’s were complaining to the group about their mom’s being overbearing, or their dad’s being way too annoying about homework or whatever, then it meant they’re parents were better than they made them sound. Jenny never talked to her friends about her family. Except Lola. Lola was special.  
Time ticked by. Jenny removed her head from the glass to look up at her house. She stared at the front door for maybe a minute before deciding to speak her mind to the no one present, “This is taking longer than usual,” She told herself. Jenny finagled her phone from her pocket. She’d been sitting, waiting for twenty minutes. She’d put her phone on silent with vibrator off while listening to music during her wait. There were messages from three of her friends, one asking “You on your way?” Another asked where she was at. There was one from Lola, too. She unlocked her phone to read her message. “Hey. Sorry if there’s problems getting here. Are things alright?”  
“Parents fighting, again” She typed out with her let thumb, sending it out. Jenny looked back to the door and slowly lowered herself back to the window. She tried finding a cold spot to rest her cheek around where she’d warmed the glass with her face. She looked down at the phone in her hand. She turned back on the vibration for when Lola responded. It came within a minute.  
“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope to see you soon. I promise you a nice long hug when you get here.” REading the message made Jenny smile. She looked back to the door to see her parents were on their way. Or at least her mom. She had quickly closed the door behind her and was walking with an angry stride in her steps, so she guessed dad wasn’t coming for the ride anymore. Her mom got into the driver’s seat and began pulling out of their driveway. Jenny pulled one earbud out while going through the extra effort to pause her music, only to find out her mother wasn’t in a talking mood. She opened her phone back up to start the music, but before she could put the headphone back in, her mother cut in, “How ya feelin’, hon?” Jenny gave two blinks and then paused her music again, but not before her mom slipped in another, “Can you hear me back there?”  
“I’m, I’m good mom,” Jenny told her in a dismissive manner.  
Her mother waited for her to elaborate, glancing at her quickly through the rearview mirror once before asking “Is… Is that it? Nothing new to tell me?”  
“Well, what do you want to hear?” Jenny asked impatiently.  
“Jeez! You don’t need to be sassy about it.” Jenny glanced about for someone to sympathize with her. “I just want to hear about school, you know? Any boys there?”  
“I’m not interested in dating, mom. I told you that.” Jenny dismissed the question.  
“I know, I know, but just, any you like?” her mom pressed, again.  
“No. They’re all dicks at school.” Pulling out her phone to text Lola, and decided to respond to her other friends, because that’d be better than continuing this conversation.  
“Hey, language, young miss!” Her mother scorned her with a finger pointed at the mirror. Her mother kept driving, but continued to glance back through the rear view mirror, “So, who’re you texting, if not a boy?”  
Jenny looked up from her phone, miffed. “My friends? The ones I’m going to hang out with?” She asked her, wondering if she remembered.  
“Right, right. Sorry.” Her mother apologized in a joking tone. Jenny looked back down to her phone. “Can’t wait. I’ve missed you” She texted back Lola. She sent a formal be there soon message to her other curious friends, and then put in her second earbud, putting back on her music.

NEVERMIND, I GOT DECOMISSIONED, THIS IS NOW CLYVID ADVENTURES, IT’S CLYDE AND DAVID ADVENTUUUUURREESS!!!!

David sat in the back of Kenny’s truck. The group he was with was a pretty weird group overall. Kenny drove, and he was next to Jimmy. In back with David, with Stan Clyde, which Cartman joked “How are you even going to fit anyone in a seat next to them in a shitty little car like,” before Kyle told him there’d be extra room, since they were ditching him, which he had already been told he wasn’t going with them on their friend’s trip, since he wasn’t a friend, but he had shown up to them all packing in Kenny and Token’s cars anyway. Cartman didn’t put Kyle’s words seriously until Kyle was the last one in Token’s car, and he was trying to push his way in.   
When Stan and Kenny saw the two of them fighting, Stan was the one to make the call, “Kenny, just go, before he tries squeezing in here.”  
“What if they need our help!?” Kenny argued. “We can’t just leave them. I’m the driver, if I get out, he doesn’t have a license, and can’t leave without me.”  
“Yeah, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving that many of my friend’s fates up in the air.”  
“I have a license, and he’ll come in through my door and force me into the driver’s seat. There’s nothing you can do for them. We’ll see them again, eventually, but there’s a storm brewing over there, and we don’t want to get caught in its wake. We can’t let a seat be open for a moment.”  
Kenny looked in horror at the fighting going on between Kyle and Cartman before reluctantly lowering his head in defeat and giving the key a turn. The engine gave three reluctant coughs, and Stan moved forward in his seat to look over the shoulder of Jimmy and stare at the hood of the car, trying to see what was wrong with the engine beneath. “What’s wrong!?”  
“Don’t worry, the car might be an old piece o’ shit, but the engine’s still pretty new. It just takes a few attempts sometimes.” Kenny tried explaining what was wrong, giving the engine another go. David looked over to the minivan Token’s parents had got him. Suddenly Cartman’s head poked around the side of the van, a look of death in his eyes.  
David looked to Kenny revving the engine again, then back to see Cartman coming their way, a look of hate used by men like Myke Tyson in their attempts to intimidate their opponents into slipping their guard up when he would come charging in with a fury of ballistic attacks. It was a strategy that one Myke Tyson most of his matches before the second round, and though David doubted Cartman’s awareness of this intimidation strategy, it was working wonders for how David lacked a clue in Cartman’s intentions, walking around Token’s car towards them. David turned to the front seat, “Guys, hurry, we’ve got trouble coming our way, and I don’t know how secure these old door locks are!” David turned to see Cartman in front of his window, which sent him recoiling into Stan, who turned to see him and quickly looked back to Kenny.  
“We gotta go, dude,” Stan shouted, “Now!”  
“I’m fucking tryi-” Kenny was cut off by the sound of screeching tires and turning to see Token’s minivan skidding down the driveway recklessly, giving an incredibly fast and furious turn onto the far lane and then pulling forward to head right, and David and Clyde watched as Kyle and Craig flipped off Cartman, and them as well, whether they meant it or not, as they flew down the road away from them. “The fuck, guys?” Kenny commented, hurt by how quickly they made that decision. David looked and saw Cartman had been distracted momentarily as well, and without turning, in a hushed tone, said, “Kenny, now.”  
“Kenny looked down at the key and holding it with faith in his heart, and eyes shut tight, he turned the key to three revs of the engine and then a steady purr he knew and loved. He breathed a sigh of relief for it, and after a moment of faith assured, threw his arm over the shoulder of his seat and looked down the driveway. “Pay attention, kids, this is how a real pro turns ninety degrees!”  
“Kenny, we’re in a truck, there’s no wa-” Stan’s complaints were lambasted by Kenny flying into the line out of Stan’s driveway.  
“Stan, you can criticize my shitty thirty dollar engine,’ Kenny gave his friend, “But don’t you tell me how to drive my car.”  
Stan assessed his statement for a moment before leaning up to the driver’s side and asking, “Did you say you got your engine for thirty bu-” Kenny shifted into first gear and slammed on the pedal, burning rubber as he drove off and sending Stan flying back into the back seat.  
By the time Kenny had reached up to Token’s car, and past them illegally to be a dick in return for their ditching them with Cartman, the two cars were cruising up on the highway, and everyone was now relaxing into the mood of the car, a tape of Green Day’s Dookie playing. David found the choice strange, and made it known with an accusative “is this Green Day?” At the sign of the first hint of the singer’s familiar voice.  
“Old Green Day is actually really badass.” Kenny came to the old band’s defense. “Fuckin’, Dookie, Insomniac, fuck, American Idiot isn’t that bad, we can just never go back to it, due to being tainted by being badass to us as we children. And keep in mind what else was going on when these guys came together in, like, ‘88, I think it was. The eighties didn’t just go away in a whimper like children of men, the eighties fought for their survival for years, before killing the nineties in ‘97, destroying the Simpsons and taking out both Biggie and Cobain, and replacing them with the Spice Girls, and then Britney Spears came, and it was the eighties all over, again. And it’s been a slow battle to overcome the eighties. We’re constantly battling them with their war on drugs and defacing of millennials for not conforming to their Friends and their fuckiiiinnn.. Their fuckin’ Full house reruns.”  
David wasn’t alone in looking at Kenny like he was crazy. “So the eighties killed the nineties, and then the eighties came back, and so Green Day is badass for being nineties when the world was still the nineties?” David tried to make sense of his ramblings about the problems of the world.  
Kenny looked back at David in his rearview mirror, the two of them holding eye contact before Kenny nodded, “Yes,” And then looked back to the road.  
“Kay, just as long as we’re on the same page.” Everyone in the car continued listening to Kenny’s Green Day album.  
“Can we get more examples of how the two thousands were just the nineties?” Clyde asked Kenny.  
“Well, sure, Clyde. NOw let’s see.” Kenny searched his mind for things to make fun of. “Well, first, we’ve got the ninja turtles back, every radio station in our poor little town seemed to have throwback Thursdays more times a week than should be allowed, like, don’t toss in your awesome eighties weekend bullshit, and don’t count Friday and Monday in your awesome eighties weekend, two thousand radio stations, you can’t throwback five days a week, and then play Britney Spears and… The one Estelle song with Kanye the other two. We’ve all listened to eighties music, there were two genres Disco, which turned to the many raps and hip hops, and whatever the fuck you wanna call A-Ha that turned into the many rocks, and also Soft rock. Soft rock was the rock that the parents were pushing on us. Nothing against Tom Petty, but fuck you for Free Fallin’.”  
“Yeah, I gotcha on that one,” Clyde shook his head in sympathy.  
“Okay, I don’t know what you guys are talking about. I don’t remember music being all that bad back in the day.” David tried to interject.  
Kenny looked back to David, “How did you listen to your music mostly? Because I feel like I can guess your answer and that’ll explain why.”  
David looked about the other passengers in the back of the car. Stan was fast asleep for the long ride, already. Stan was quick to fall asleep when someone else was driving away from South Park; it was one of the times he rested easiest. Jimmy was listening intently. Usually, he was quick to toss in a joke, but it was a bit like he was getting directly hurt by this conversation, being the most eightiesest in the car, and was stopped in his tracks by the conversation. David looked back to Kenny, “I used Napster. Okay?”  
“Yeeeaaahhh,” Kenny gave a long approving note, “The only bastion of hope in an otherwise childproofed eighties, internet crime. They didn’t have that in the eighties, people only started using the internet to it’s full potential in the nineties. Daria made the first joke about internet sexual harassment in it’s third episode in nineteen ninety-seven, that wouldn’t fly for years, outside of Comedy Central or VH1.” Kenny was announcing this to the group like he was presenting this rant like a TED talk. “What were you listening to through Napster?”  
David looked to Clyde, and then Jimmy. “Selena and Janet Jackson.”  
Kenny got a big grin, turning away from his friends in the back and placing his forehead on the wheel, giving light chuckles, before getting a big breath air through his nose and sitting up straight. “Yeah that feels about right.”  
David was going to defend his musical choices, but Clyde jumped in to take a swing at it himself, first. “What people listen to is their choice, Kenny. There’s nothing wrong with either of those two bands. Janet Jackson is actually really fantastic and offered plenty of commentary on the world at the time. She was, like, a nineties Janelle Monae.”  
“Alright fair,” Kenny gave him, “But seriously, it’s just like… What else, what else?” Kenny was begging him to elaborate so he could make fun of him more.  
“Look, they were my first two albums that I owned, and I listened to them both for a year whenever I was at home. I didn’t exactly have a lot of free time as a kid, and If we were driving anywhere, we were listening to the radio, which, again, was very different to what you guys got down here in Colorado.”  
“Wait,” Kenny stopped him, “But you just said you got all your music through Napster?”  
“No, I said I USED Napster.”  
A moment past, allowing for the three elliptic dots to form in Kenny’s mind one after the other as he put together David’s statements. Then, he burst it out, “Wait, so you only ever used Napster for those two albums, and you’ve just been holding onto that guilt for years over illegally downloading twenty bucks worth of music?” The car looked to David for a response.  
David felt the pressure on him, as he was pinned down for what was being made out to be really stupid of him. “They were… They’re worth more than twenty dollars between them.” Kenny burst out laughing. “I also bought, like, three more later,” David tried to defend himself, but Jimmy was joining in on the laughter.  
“It’s actually kinda funny,” Jimmy commented.  
Clyde jumped into the conversation, trying to shift the buck to himself, “I was way too scared as a kid to do anything illegal, and never used Napster, for fear the government might come and take me away. I remember thinking Panic! At the disco was the shit, and just staring at A Fever you can’t sweat out, and my finger shaking as it hung above the left click button, and being to scared to start the download. My mom use to tell me, ‘never download anything on the internet, or the computer will get a virus!’ I thought if I broke the computer, or if I got the cops to show up looking to take away the computer, my mom would just kick me out, and I just started bawling, screaming ‘I don’t wanna be a criminal! I don’t wanna!’”  
“How long had you known Craig back then?”   
“Since first Grade.”  
“How long did you know him before he eventually turned you guys all into ‘real’ criminals?”  
“We were teenage hooligans, your gang, were committing international espionage and shit.”  
“He does have a point,” David agreed with Clyde, like having a friend in his corner. “It took me maybe a month to figure you guys were gonna be trouble. I had to stop hanging with you guys, before things would get out of hand for me.”  
“So what, you chose these losers over us?” Kenny asked David, accusatively.  
“You realize there are more of the losers in the car than you, right?” Clyde told Kenny in a joking manner.  
Kenny chuckled, “Ahh, the wonders of youth.” Clyde looked to David, who met his look back to watch him cock his head at Kenny dodging his question. Kenny stared down the highway in front of him. David was looking to one another, lightly chatting about sports or some shit, I don’t give a fuck, while Stan and Jimmy were on their phones when Kenny suddenly cut into the conversation, “Hey, did anyone print out the directions?”  
“What?” Stan asked him.  
“Does anyone have the directions on hand?”  
“I mean, I can pull them up on my phone?” Clyde suggested.  
“Alright, then what exit am I supposed to take?” Kenny asked him.  
“Yeah, give me a minute,” Clyde said, as he joined the other kids on his phone and pulled up his navigation app. David was then left alone without his phone out, and a moment to look around and feel uncomfortable in the silence of the car. Suddenly anxious, David lied back in his seat and pulled out his own phone. David had never taken to any particular app, he just had ten types of apps in which to either watch videos or listen to podcasts and music, but if he went for any of those options, then he might close himself off from a conversation, if Clyde gets off his phone and still wants to talk. He went into the full list of apps he had at his disposal, and the options weren’t good, every social media he was aware his friends were, but only ever checked if a notification told him to, which he currently had ten notifications he didn’t want to look at. Then, he remembered downloading the Sonic 1 phone game that was a really good port, and made by the same people who made Sonic Mania, and if you like Sonic you should check that shit out, I don’t give a fuck, this is still a decommission spite fic, I’ll fucking shill out for Sonic, especially if that means helping support HeadCanon games, Support good artists, download it, it’s fucking free, get Sonic Mania, it’s twenty bucks, it’s good, don’t get Sonic Forces, they’ve got an advertisement deal with Hooters, like, what? Fuck you, Sega, what’s happened? You have a good game, and you go fucking insane. Anyway; David opened the Sonic app and finally started playing it after having it downloaded for two weeks. Opening up onto level one, he started running through the stage at a breakneck pace, but not used to the phone screen controls, he quickly lost his first life to a fish he’d known to jump out of the way of. Just as David was getting into his second run, getting more comfortable with the controls, Clyde announced, “you’re gonna want to take this number nine until it turns into a seventy.”  
Kenny didn’t put in the effort to turn all the way around to look and see if Clyde meant that in a joking way and he just couldn’t tell by the tone of his voice, before he’d even shifted in his seat, he knew he wasn’t. “Highways. They are called highways. And Do you know where we’re going?”  
Clyde looked down at his phone. “Camping?” He asked.  
“Yes. Do you know where?”  
“The woods.”  
“Clyde, we are going to Aspen, did you search directions on your phone for Aspen?”  
Clyde looked at his phone, poking the screen of his phone a few times, and then replying, “Yes.” David chuckled.  
“Ugh…” Stan through in his two cents from his uncomfortable position, back off kilter as he found himself squeezed between David and Clyde, both of them trying to give him ample room staring at his phone I’m still pissed we’re going to this thing. Me and Kyle got enough of that place in two days, I never wanted to go back there.”  
“Well, I never got to go, and it’s been sitting around, going to waste for years, now. The only people who have ever used it are Butters’ parents whenever they’ve felt like abandoning him for two weeks a year. So we’re stealing that opportunity from them.”  
“Alright, I’ve got the directions, now,” Clyde announced. “And we’re still taking the highway to seventy”  
“Alright, and that’s the quickest path?” Kenny asked.  
“Well, no, but it’s the way we’re already going,” Clyde said, nonchalantly.  
Stan turned to Clyde, their faces two inches apart. Clyde felt Stan breath on his shoulder as he let out an exhaustive sigh. “What is the quickest.” He asked.  
“The other way,” Clyde said raising his hand to point his thumb backward, and to have it in between the two of their heads.  
Stan turned to Kenny, “Turn around.”  
“Ughod…” Kenny grumbled, trying to say Oh God, “You’re gonna have to text someone in the other car.”  
“Fine.” Stan slumped back into his uncomfortable position. Clyde looked down at his phone and then closed it down for the moment. He looked back around Stan to get a look at David to see if he was ready to keep talking, but he was playing on his phone. Clyde lowered his head and then sat back in his seat.  
Stan squealed his way up to Kenny’s side and, reading off his phone, informed him, “Token already took the right path. Kyle was wondering where our car was.”  
“They’re iN THE LEAD!?” Kenny burst out in aggression, the car slowly increasing in speed, closing up on an upcoming exit. Kenny slid down the off-ramp, and now in some other quiet little mountain town barren of cars on the street, Kenny slammed on the breaks, opening his window to get a good look behind him. He then put his rusty car in reverse and started barreling down the road.   
Everyone in the car was also looking behind the car, David noticing from his side of the car someone coming down the same exit they’d just taken, about to hit the main road. David announced it properly, shouting out, “Car coming from the right!!!!” But Kenny paid it no mind, slamming on breaks, which, on the icy winter roads, the car started skating for a moment, which caused Kenny to tighten his face hard, not letting fear take him in, as he continued with his action movie tactic that no one should try at home of turning his wheels as far left as they could go while still slamming the back breaks, and finding his car turning 180 degrees, and slamming the stick into second and turning his wheels forward, driving into the right lane and zooming for the Southern heading exit, onto which he barreled.   
Kenny whispered to himself, “I swear to you, Token, I’ll be the first to Aspen. No one’s a more successful driver than me.”  
Everyone in the car had heard Kenny, and were staring at him. David commented, “Okay, I don’t know if that was supposed to be the fade out, or something, but what?”  
Kenny barely acknowledged the question with an “Eh?”  
“You whispered ‘I will be the most successful driver.’ That is incredibly foreboding.”  
“Stop hyperfocusing on details, just cut away. Stop this, we’ll be back when we’re at the fucking mountain lodge, I, as the author, wanna stop writing, I’m tired, I’ll get back to this, I got decommissioned, I’ll do a second fuckkin’ chapter, I’ll be back later, it’s been a long start to the school year, I’ve been going back and forth through a lot of emotions, and I’m grappling with accepting the end of the world, which is a daily confrontation, I’m fuckin’ tired, and I still feel the need to get up and write everyday, I don’t hate that, I’m just, I fuckin’... I need a break every once in a while, I gotta handle my emotions, I’m sorry, I keep getting these feelings of being a horrible person, I put too much on people I care about, I don’t know how to handle going about talking about my emotions in a nuanced way, everything flows out in thick waves on people who don’t need that, this is an exemplary moment of me doing just that, I’m sorry, I’m fucking, I’m……….. I need time. I think I’m actually about to start crying, I’m sorry.”

Link to a short article on Sonic Forces pairing with Hooters, if you didn’t believe me:  
https://www.destructoid.com/sonic-forces-and-hooters-collaboration-is-real-and-happening-462857.phtml


End file.
